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For Ash Wednesday, I reminded readers here that the season of Lent is also a “joyful” season, an aspect that should not be ignored. We should never forget though, that it is also a solemn time, above all a time…Read more →

So why should we see St Paddy as a gay icon? In a notable book on Irish gay history (“Terrible Queer Creatures”) Brian Lacey presents some evidence that Patrick may have had a long term intimate relationship with a man: “St.…Read more →

Gonna Stick My Sword in the Golden Sand: A Vietnam Soldier's Story has just been released. The title comes from a stanza of the gospel traditional, Down by the Riverside, with its refrain--"Ain't gonna study war no more." Golden Sand is a bold, dark, and intense retelling of the Vietnam experience through the eyes of an army scout that is […]

I am pleased and honored that the UCC has asked me to moderate a symposium during the games entitled Queer Christians: Celebrating the Past, Shaping the Future. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Greetings to all others who grace these pages! Thank you for stopping by. If you still have a reader pointed here, this blog no longer publishes in this location, but can be found at this new link. Please subscribe to the new feed, get the new blog via email or read us by liking us on Facebook or by following me on Twitter.If you want more, please feel free […]

. . . in response to The Imitation Game winning for Best Adapted Screenplay at last night's Oscars.In perhaps the most bitter irony of all, the filmmakers have managed to transform the real Alan Turing, vivacious and forceful, into just the sort of mythological gay man, whiney and weak, that homophobes love to hate. This is indicative of the bad faith u […]

Sam Albano co-founded a youth ministry in his Catholic parish in Carmel, Indiana. Until August 2014, he served on the parish council. His pastor then informed him that, because he had made statements on social media questioning Catholic teaching about same-sex relationships, he could no longer serve in leadership positions in the parish, unless he refrained […]

As I noted two days ago, immediately after Arkansas enacted its new "pro-business" right-to-discriminate (against gays) legislation, a Texas legislator filed a copycat bill in that state. And now West Virginia: as David Badash writes,West Virginia is the latest state to copycat Arkansas in a wave of state legislatures banning ordinances protecting […]

Archbishop Neinstedt gives the camera his best "I would never tell a lie" expression. I just finished reading Jennifer Hasselberger's deposition released by Jeff Anderson and Associates. The deposition was given for a civil suit against the Archdiocese of Minneapolis/St Paul and involves child sexual abuse by a priest known to have serious se […]

I just came across this superb expose of the secret world of gay Jesuits - written by former gay Jesuit, Ben Brenkert, who at the age of 35 left both the Jesuits and the Roman Catholic Church in protest against it's treatment of LGBTQ people. This is really powerful stuff and resonates so much with my own experience in the 80's, when I was doing th […]

I recently posted a review at my other blogsite of a delightful crime novel entitled, First Grave on the Right, by author Darynda Jones. This book was the first in a series that numbers eight novels by now and still counting.The central character is a young woman detective with psychic abilities named Charley, who can 'see dead people'. These are u […]

Walking around the yard today with my trusty companions, Lucy and Mouse :) It really is spring here - there are many wild flowers, like these yellow ones ...But most of the flowers are the blooms on the fruit trees ...Lucy gets a drink from the bird bath ...More fruit tree blossoms ...Mouse watches me take pics ...And more flowers ...

Call to Action is the largest group of progressive Catholics with roots in the liberalizing reforms of Vatican II, originally sanctioned by the American Council of Bishops, but which became an outsider organization as conservative retrenchment set in during the papacy of John Paul II.

Pope John Paul II repeatedly dashed hopes for any internal liberalizing during his lifetime, and he prepared for the future by appointing as bishops only men who upheld his views on contraception and the ordination of women. Meanwhile, there were crackdowns on theologians like [Hans] Kung and an insistence from Rome that diversity of opinion was not to be tolerated.

The organization is stronger than ever and continues to a thorn in the flesh of the patriarchal and hierarchal Vatican:

We appeal to the institutional church to reform and renew its structures. We also appeal to the people of God to witness to the Spirit who lives within us and to seek ways to serve the vision of God in human society.

We call upon church officials to incorporate women at all levels of ministry and decision-making.

We call upon the church to discard the medieval discipline of mandatory priestly celibacy and to open the priesthood to women and married men…so that the Eucharist may continue to be the center of the spiritual life of all Catholics.

We call for extensive consultation with the Catholic people in developing church teaching on human sexuality.

We claim our responsibility as committed laity, religious and clergy to participate in the selection of our local bishops, a time-honored tradition in the church.

We call for open dialogue, academic freedom, and due process.

We call upon the church to become a model of financial openness on all levels, including the Vatican.

We call for a fundamental change so that young people will see and hear God living in and through the church as a participatory community of believers who practice what they preach.

Another group of progressive Catholics has moved beyond advocacy to open defiance of the Vatican by ordaining women despite excommunication. Called Roman Catholic Womenpriests, the organization now has five female bishops who are actively ordaining women to the priesthood around the US.

The Sarasota Florida Herald Tribune offered a lengthy article on Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan and her ordination of two women as priests and one as a deacon over the weekend.

A former nun who the Vatican says has been excommunicated will ordain two women priests and one deacon in Sarasota today, part of a growing and controversial movement claiming to be an offshoot of the Catholic church.

The ordinations will be the first in Florida by the group known as Roman Catholic Womenpriests, which preaches equality for women by allowing them into the priesthood and plays down allegiance to the pope.

The official Catholic church calls the movement and the ordinations illegitimate, and the local diocese sent letters to parishes saying any Catholics who support the ordination of women by attending today’s ceremony will be automatically excommunicated — a banishment from participating in church sacraments such as baptism and communion until forgiveness is given by a priest.

“Good!” said Bridget Mary Meehan, the former nun who is performing today’s ordinations and is one of five bishops in the national movement. “They’re upping the ante. People will have to be courageous to support us and that is what this is about. Like our sister Rosa Parks, we refuse to sit on the back of the bus any longer.”

To parishioners in her small Sacramento congregation, Elizabeth English is their Catholic priest: She presides over their Sunday Mass, leads them during Communion and baptizes their babies.

To the Roman Catholic Church, English symbolizes a topic that church leaders consider closed: the ordination of women priests.

English left the Roman Catholic Church five years ago to pursue her calling to the priesthood. She is now a priest in the Independent Catholic Church, a group not recognized by the Vatican. She is the only female Catholic priest in the Sacramento region.

“I had to leave the church; there was no place for me,” she said. “I wish there was.”

Another of the five Womenpriest bishops, Andrea M. Johnson, will appear tomorrow at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University. Bishop Johnson will speak and participate in a blue ribbon panel discussion about female ordination. This information comes from blogger Wild Hair whose self description is “Roman Catholic Priest, still in reasonably good standing; aka: eminence, the cardinal archbishop of HGN.”

Finally, Bishop Bridget mentioned earlier has her own blog with lots of info and links about the Womenpriest movement. Check it out.

9 Responses

I don’t see any difference between this bunch and the Society of St. Pius X. Neither accepts Vatican II’s teaching regarding the constitution of the Church. Both consider that they carry the future. And both have joined a long, ancient, and distinguished line of schismatics who consider that they’ve finally “gotten it right.”

If a pope or ecumenical council declared tomorrow that it was ordaining women, I’d have no problem with it. But today it hasn’t, and, frankly, I don’t see much value in expending a lot of effort remaking the Church in the image of a representative republic.

In fact, if we laity really believed that we were just as much the Church as the clergy, we wouldn’t be spending so much time trying to get every demographic into the clergy. The point is not to be a priest, but to be a Christian.

I was responding to your specific statement, “‘Progressive Catholic’ is an oxymoron,” Mr. Ludescher.

The fact that Paul VI wrote an encyclical entitled Populorum progressio, and that (as you note) Benedict cites it in some of his recent encyclicals, clearly demonstrates that “progressive Catholic” is anything but an oxymoron.

How can a faith focused on the eschaton–on the future and its fulfillment by Christ at the end of history–be anything but progressive? The term means, literally, “moving forward.”

I think perhaps you and I read the history of our tradition differently. I see many streams moving simultaneously within our tradition, where you speak of unity and consistency. Where I strongly defend unity in necessary things, I also would defend liberty in what is not necessary, and charity in all. Many of the most important and necessary changes that have occurred in our tradition have occurred because thoughtful, conscientious, and, yes, faithful believers have chosen to keep asking questions when unity and consistency were imposed on the whole church, from the top down, in matters that turned out not to be central to the church’s faith after all.

Pius IX famously condemned the idea that the pope should reconcile himself with the modern world, in his Syllabus of Errors.

“Catholic” is, by definition, a unity. Progressive Catholic implies that there are multiple Catholics.

The term “progressive Catholic” as used by Obie, and others, usually refers to a political movement within the larger Church. Sometimes it may be faithful; at other times, it may be both wrong and divisive.

Anyone reading Caritas Veritate, Pope Benedict’s update of Populorum Progressio, would have to conclude that the Catholic Church and its appointed spokesperson is very “progressive” on almost every social issue.

Blogroll

Our Daily Thread
A blog maintained by Catholics United, an organization dedicated to promoting the message of justice and the common good found at the heart of the Catholic Social Tradition.

V2 Catholic
An international forum to promote and defend the vision of Vatican II

Catholic News & e-zines

America
A national (U.S.) Catholic news weekly commenting on religious and political themes.

Catholica
Australian Catholic e-zine, with “an excitingly different way of looking at faith and spirituality.”

Commonweal
An independent journal of opinion edited and managed by lay Catholics in the U.S.

National Catholic Reporter
An independent American Catholic weekly that seeks to inform and inspire a just and peaceful world, serving as a platform for discussions of church, society and global community.

New Catholic Times: sensus fidelium
A Canadian bi-monthly forum for conversation about the Catholic principles of solidarity with the poor, the common good, the dignity of the human person and the presence of God in all creation.

The Progressive Catholic Voice
An independent and grassroots forum for reflection, dialogue, and the exchange of ideas within the Catholic community of Minnesota (U.S.) and beyond.

U.S. Catholic
A forum for lay Catholics reviewing the intersection of US cultural and political life and the Catholic faith.

Catholic Opinon & Personal blogsites

A Seat at the Table
Claire Bangasser’s blog, which re-imagines a Church engaged in dialogue with people at the margins, inviting everyone at the table, with a thirst for social justice and gender equality.

Bilgrimage
This blog is me on pilgrimage, sharing my journey with companions who want to walk along–towards truth that needs to be told but doesn’t get spoken, towards whatever and whoever draws us along to the horizon of hope.

Blue Eyed Ennis
A blog maintained by writer Phil Ewing of Cornwall, England, with a focus on spirituality, social justice, and poetry, among other matters

Bridget Mary's Blog
A womanpriest’s personal blog: “I was ordained a priest on July 31, 2006 and am interested in discussions on spirituality. We are interested in establishing a renewed model of priestly ministry.”

Enlightened Catholicism
A place for Catholics who don’t find their Catholic identity in the standard definitions. “He drew a circle that shut me out. Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in.” Edwin Markham

Father Geoff Farrow
A blog of Fr. Geoff Farrow, suspended from active ministry for speaking against proposition 8 in California, and an advocate for the rights of LGBT persons.

Gay Mystic
A blog dedicated the future of a renewed, inclusive, fair and open Roman Catholic tradition, in the spirit of Pope John Paul I, and maintained by Jayden Cameron.

J. S. O'Leary
A personal blog, which features “Essays on literary and theological themes”.

James Alison
A website collecting the works of Rev. James Alison, a Catholic theologian whose work explores gay themes from a Catholic standpoint,

John McNeill Website
Website of the pioneering (and prolific) theologian John McNeill, exploring gay themes in light of Catholic theology.

John McNeill's Spiritual Transformation Blog
Drawing on spirituality, psychotherapy, and theology, as well as his lifelong experience as a spiritual director, John McNeill offers guidance for those seeking spiritual transformation.

Nihil Obstat
Examines public statements and letters of church officials and concerned Catholics in light of Christ’s ministry of justice and inclusion.

Queering the Church
“Towards Reality Based Theology”: Faith from a queer perspective, but also progressive Catholicism, Queer history, and the progress towards equality

Sacredfisher
Regina Colleen Heater’s sacredfisher.com is blog site is born out of the desire to reach people in both their hearts and their heads as they consider their lives in faith. The idea comes from Jesus’ call to make the apostles “fishers of men.”

DignityUSA
DignityUSA envisions and works for a time when Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Catholics are affirmed and experience dignity through the integration of their spirituality with their sexuality, and as beloved persons of God participate fully in all

Future Church
FutureChurch seeks changes that will provide all Roman Catholics the opportunity to participate fully in Church life and leadership.

Institute for Progressive Christianity
An ecumenical organization seeking to further awareness and understanding that the progressive tradition is rooted in core Christian gospel values, and to relate that tradition to personal faith, public policy, family, and the common good.

New Ways Ministry
A gay-positive ministry of advocacy and justice for lesbian and gay Catholics and reconciliation within the larger Christian and civil communities.

Roman Catholic Women Priests
An international initiative within the Roman Catholic Church spiritually preparing, ordaining, and supporting women and men from all states of life, who are theologically qualified, committed to an inclusive model of Church, and called by the Holy Spirit

Saint Mychal Judge
A blog devoted to encouraging greater faith, hope, and love through discussion of Father Mychal Judge, OFM, the saint of 9/11.

Soulforce
Guided by principles of nonviolent resistance, Soulforce works to end the religious and political oppression of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning people.

Stand up For Vatican II
A campaign designed to involve the whole Church, Catholic organisations and individuals, who recognise the benefits the Second Vatican Council brought to the Church.

Talk to Action
“Reclaiming Citizenship, History and Faith”, Talk to Action aims to counter the religious right.

Voice of the Faithful
An organization seeking to provide a prayerful voice, attentive to the Spirit, through which the Faithful can actively participate in the governance and guidance of the Catholic Church.

We Are Church
An international movement committed to the renewal of the Roman Catholic Church on the basis of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the theological spirit developed from it.

Young Adult Catholics
A blog dedicated to the progressive, faithful, Catholic voices of 20- and 30-year-olds and sponsored by Call to Action.

Other Christian Websites &Blogs

Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists
A website of churches, organizations, and individuals on record as welcoming and affirming all persons without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity, who have joined to advocate for full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender person

Cross Left
The online enagement organization of the Institute for Progressive Christianity and its strategy clearing-house and central hub for grassroots activism among progressive Christians.

Ekklesia
An ecumenical religion and society think-tank at the cutting edge of culture, spirituality and politics.

Faith in America
The mission of Faith In America is to educate the public about the harm caused to gay Americans when religion-based bigotry and prejudice is used to justify condemnation, discrimination and violence toward this minority population group.

Goodsoil
Goodsoil is a collaboration of organizations working for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their families in the full ministerial and sacramental life of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Jesus in Love
Jesus in Love serves gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people who have spiritual interests, and their allies, with a focus on spirituality, books and arts.

Lutheran News
Aggregates news and blog comments on Lutheran and other churches.

Reconciling Ministries Network
A movement of United Methodist individuals, congregations, campus ministries, and other groups working for the full participation of all people in the United Methodist Church.

Religion Dispatches
A daily online magazine dedicated to the analysis and understanding of religious forces in the world today, highlighting a diversity of progressive voices and aimed at broadening and advancing the public conversation.